Spade’s frown put deep creases between his eyebrows, as if he were chasing elusive memories. “Bootlegging syndicate... seventy-five thousand.” He stopped, shrugged, nodded. “Go on.”
“Collin finally decided to have it out with St. James at home, with his wife in the next room. That way, he said, St. James couldn’t do anything violent and unpredictable.”
“But a week or so later Eberhard was dead.”
“Collin was usually waiting for me at the apartment when I got home from work, but on that day this slender insignificant-looking man I had never seen before was sitting in the living room. He just said that Collin was dead, nothing more. I sort of collapsed into a chair, I was so shocked and so... devastated. It was only later that I realized this was less than an hour after Collin had died.”
“St. James must have gone straight to your apartment from the Neptune Bath House.” Spade’s frown had deepened. “But Eberhard was alive when St. James left the bathhouse.”
“He took my hand like he was going to — to comfort me and then...” She held out her left hand with its badly set little finger. “He twisted my finger and broke it. He laughed and said if I ever told anyone about him he would kill my mother, and then Effie, and then me.”
She stopped there, drained her glass, set it aside.
“I panicked. I jerked free and ran down the stairs and jumped aboard an outbound streetcar. I got off in Jordan Heights and got my finger set at the Nurses’ Training School there.”
“Set badly.”
“I didn’t care. That night I got a room at the Y.W.C.A. boarding home in O’Farrell Street. At six the next morning I hid in the Russ Building ladies’ room until Hartford and Cole opened. I went in, told them my lies, and got my last paycheck and left. I hated it, they had been so good to me, but I needed that money and I knew I had to get it right away. I knew St. James would come looking for me there.”
“You’re a survivor, sweetheart,” said Spade admiringly.
“Barely.” She tried another weak smile. “I chose the apartment on Severn Place because I thought he’d never find me out there in Noe Valley. Which meant more lies.”
“Why didn’t you go to the East Bay or down the peninsula?”
“I would have had to have gone to a stage terminal or a ferry terminal. I’d be in the open. Exposed. So I hid in my apartment. But a month went by and I was running out of money. So I went to Effie’s on her birthday and she told me about working for you and that you were looking into Collin’s death. So I–I told you that tale about my father finding the chest of Bergina and that a mysterious Turk was after me. The chest is real, I believe, but my father never wrote me about it. I just wanted you to keep me and my mother and Effie safe.”
“Well, they’re safe in their homes and you’re safe here. Take all your meals in your room. Don’t talk to anyone.”
“Can’t — can’t you stay?” There was panic in her voice. “I–I saw him, Sam! He saw me! He chased me. With murder in his face...”
He put his arms around her to comfort her. “You poor kid.”
She pressed herself tight against him, her arms went around the back of his neck. His arms came up, went around her body. She clung to him. What was simple comfort seemed suddenly to be something more for both of them, surprising both of them, but then seemed inevitable.
His hands moved over her like electricity. She kissed him, openmouthed. He lifted her effortlessly off her feet and carried her to the bed. His eyes burned. When he spoke his voice was thick with a passion that seemed to go beyond protecting her, beyond wanting her, to something deeper.
“I won’t let him hurt you ever again, Penny,” Sam Spade said. “Not now. Not ever.”
27
Five Murders
Spade entered his office at 10 a.m. His eyes were clear; he was freshly bathed and shaved. His blue broadcloth dress shirt had a new soft white collar, his gray silk tie a conservative pattern. As usual, his gray woolen worsted suit, though expensive, fit him indifferently. He carried a briefcase.
Effie Perine was on her feet as he came through the door.
“How is she? Is she OK? Is she safe?”
“Yes on all counts. She’s in room three three three at the Monroe Hotel as Mary Kutina.” He set down his briefcase. “Roll me a cigarette, that’s a darling.”
As she did he prodded the briefcase with his shoe.
“I raided the bank last night, late. I haven’t had a chance to look over my haul yet. With any luck they won’t even know the stuff is gone. Not until it’s too late.”
She handed him his cigarette, lit it. He went on.
“And St. James tried an ambush last night outside my apartment.” In response to her shocked look he added, “All he did was shoot a hole in my hat.”
“But that’s crazy! How did he even know who you were? Earlier Penny saw him and he chased her and—”
“Over three hours earlier. Plenty of time to try to gun me down when I got home.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Anyway, sweetheart, Penny’s been so elusive because she had become Eberhard’s mistress and was ashamed to let you know about it.”
“Penny? A kept woman? I–I can’t believe it.”
“Oh, it’s true, right enough. It started out as a way to get money for her mother, but it turned into something else. Toward the end Eberhard was telling her everything.”
Spade told Effie Perine about the money Devlin St. James had brought to the bank and the phony gold-mining scheme worked out by Eberhard to front for it.
“Just an hour after Eberhard died St. James was breaking Penny’s little finger. He planned to kill her too.”
“Too?” demanded Effie Perine. “But Eberhard was still alive when St. James left the Neptune Bath House.”
“Yeah, so the only way he could have known it that soon was if he had set it up so he’d be gone when it happened.” Spade scooped up his briefcase. “Dig out that four-year-old autopsy report from the Marin coroner’s office, the one I never read. Those two Portagees were poisoned. I want to know if it was opium.”
Her eyes went round. “You think Devlin St. James is the St. Clair McPhee who masterminded the San Anselmo robbery?”
“Yeah.” His face tightened, became almost ferocious. “Four years off and on I’ve been looking for that bird. Now here he is, back again. The money he corrupted Eberhard with is the seventy-five thousand bucks from the San Anselmo. I should have caught it sooner, but I never saw McPhee and I haven’t seen St. James even now. He tried to kill me back then because I cost him fifty thousand in gold bullion. He tried to kill me last night ’cause I’m taking apart his gold-mining scam.”
She looked at him with worried eyes. “What are you going to do, Sam? To protect yourself?”
“Stop him before he stops me.”
Five minutes later Effie Perine entered Spade’s inner office with the Marin County autopsy report. Spade had papers spread across his desk, cigarette ash already drifting across them.
“Thanks, darling. Call Evelyn Eberhard and tell her to be at Sid’s office at one thirty, then call Sid and tell him he has to cancel whatever else he might have on. Then go out to the Monroe Hotel. Change cabs two or three times, have the last one drop you a block from the hotel. You know the drill. Collect Penny, take her home with you, and feed her.”
“What do I tell her?”
“That by tonight she’ll be safe.”
Both Wise and Spade stood when Evelyn Eberhard was ushered into Wise’s office. She was dressed in black, as befit a widow. But her silk sheath had a collarless neckline, and the bands and sash bows at the waist were a shocking flesh-pink color. The briefcase was beside Spade’s chair.